Kaleidoscope

302 Pages·2007·1.14 MB·English

by  Danielle Steel

Kaleidoscope
Kaleidoscope
Kaleidoscope kaleidoscope the first, shimmering moment of life, like a
diamond in the sea, glittering in the noonday sun,
brightly lit and glowing flame,
a brand new name, a shining light, then gentle twist and darkest night comes
for the first time,
then happy rhymes and gentle songs, hearts that belong until one stands
alone,
from brightest dawn
to deepest dusk, from morning sun to twilight dreams, fantastic schemes, and
lives that sometimes go awry, such shining hopes,
such sudden turns, from bright to dark
from grim to grand from joy to sorrow, always waiting for tomorrow and a
twist of fate, a ray of hope . . .
with the faintest sleight of hand, the alteration of all life's schemes
and all its scope . . .
all with one tiny turn of life's kaleidoscope.
Kaleidoscope
PART ONE
Solange
Kaleidoscope
Chapter 1
The rains were torrential northeast of Naples on the twenty-fourth of
December 1943, and Sam Walker huddled in his foxhole with his rain gear
pulled tightly around him. He was twenty-one years old and he had never been
in Europe before the war. It was a hell of a way to see the world, and he had seen
more than he'd ever wanted. He had been overseas since November of '42,
fighting in North Africa, and taking part in Operation Torch until May of '43. He
had thought Africa was bad with the deadly heat and desert winds and the
sandstorms that left you half blind with red eyes that burned for days and tears
constantly pouring down your cheeks, but this was worse. His hands were so
numb he could hardly hold the cigarette butt his buddy had given him as a
Christmas gift, let alone light it.
The wind from the mountains went right through your bones, it was the
worst winter Italy had ever seen, or so they said, and he suddenly longed for the
torrid heat of the desert. He had reached Sicily in July, with the 45th Infantry,
attached to Clark's Fifth Army, and after Sicily they had been in the battle of
Naples in October. And the battle of Termoli after that, but for two months now
they had crawled over rocks and through ditches toward Rome, hiding in barns
when they found them, stealing what food they could, fighting the Germans
every inch of the way, and bleeding over every inch they covered.
“Shit. . . .” His last match was drenched, and by then so was the butt that had
been his only Christmas present. He was twenty-one years old, and when the
Japanese struck Pearl Harbor he had been at Harvard. Harvard . . . the thought of
it would have made him laugh if he hadn't been so bone tired.
Harvard . . . with its perfect life and its pristine Quad and its bright young
faces so sure they would one day run the world. If they only knew ... it was
difficult to believe now that he had ever been a part of all that. He had worked so
damn hard to get there. He was a “townie” from Somerville, and all his life he
had dreamed of going to Harvard. His sister had laughed at him, all she had
wanted was to marry one of the boys in her high school senior class, any of them
would do, and she had certainly slept with enough of them to audition for the
part. She was three years older than Sam and she had already been married and
divorced by the time Sam finally got into Harvard, after working at every odd
job he could for a year after finishing high school. Their parents had died when
he was fifteen, in a car accident on a trip to Cape Cod, and he had wound up
living with Eileen and her eighteen-year-old “husband.” Sam had walked out
four months before Eileen's erstwhile spouse, and they had hardly seen each
other after that. He had gone to see her once, to say good-bye, three days after
he'd been drafted. She'd been working in a bar, had dyed her hair blond, and he
had hardly recognized her in the dim light when he'd first seen her. She'd looked
embarrassed at first, and there was the same cunning light in her eyes he had
remembered and always hated. Eileen looked out for number one, and her little
brother had never meant much to her.
“Well, good luck . . .” She'd stood awkwardly staring at him in a dark corner
of the bar, as he wondered if he should kiss her good-bye, but she'd seemed
anxious to get back to work, and didn't seem to have anything more to say to
him. “Let me know where you are. . . .”
“Yeah . . . sure . . . take care of yourself. . . .” He had felt twelve years old
again, saying good-bye to her, and he remembered all of the things he had never
liked about his sister. It was hard to remember anything he had liked. They had
always seemed like two people from different worlds, different lives, almost
different planets. She had tortured him as a child, by telling him he was adopted,
and he had believed her until their mother had whipped her one day and told
Sam in her pathetic boozy way that Eileen was lying. Eileen always lied, she lied
about everything, and whenever possible she had blamed Sam for whatever she'd
done, and most of the time their father believed her. Sam had felt foreign to all of
them, the big, burly father who had worked on a fishing boat all his life, the
mother who drank too much, and the sister who partied all night. He had lain in
his bed at times, imagining what it would be like to be part of a “real” family, the
kind with hot meals on the table, and clean sheets on the bed ... a family from
Beacon Hill perhaps . . . who summered on Cape Cod ... a family with little
children and dogs, and parents who laughed a lot. He couldn't remember ever
seeing his parents laugh or smile or hold hands, and sometimes he wondered if
they ever had. Secretly, he hated them for the tawdry lives they led, and the life
they had condemned him to. He wanted so much more than that. And they hated
him in return for his good grades, his bright mind, his starring roles in his high
school plays, and the things he said to them, about other lives, other worlds,
other people. He had once confided to his father that he wanted to go to Harvard
one day, and his father had stared at him as though he were a stranger. And he
was, to all of them. When he finally went to Harvard, it was a dream come true,
and the scholarship he had won had been the gift of a lifetime . . . the gift of a
lifetime . . . and then that magical first day, after working so hard for so long,
and then suddenly three months later it was over.
The rain beat on his frozen hands and he heard a voice next to him for the
first time, as he glanced over his shoulder.
“Need a light?”
He nodded, startled out of his memories, and looked up to see a tall blond
man with blue eyes and rivers of rain pouring down his thin cheeks. They all
looked like they were crying.
“Yeah . . . thanks . . .” Sam smiled, and for a moment his eyes danced as they
had years before. He had been full of mischief once, aeons before. He had
dreamt of being the life and soul of the drama club at Harvard. “Nice Christmas,
huh?”
The other man smiled. He looked older than Sam, but even Sam looked older
than his years now. After North Africa and the Italian campaign, they all felt like
old men, and some of them looked it. “Arthur Patterson.” He introduced himself
formally and Sam laughed out loud as a gust of wind swept them both against
the side of the foxhole.
“Charming place, Italy, isn't it? I've always wanted to come here. A truly
marvelous vacation.” He looked around him as though seeing beautiful girls in
bathing suits and beaches with endless lovely bodies, as Patterson grinned and
chuckled in spite of himself.
“Been here long?”
“Oh, about a thousand years. I was in North Africa last Christmas. Terrific
place. We were invited by Rommel.” He gratefully took the light from the tall
blond man, lit the butt and got two good drags before burning his fingers. He'd
have offered it to his new friend but there wasn't time before the rain put out the
mere half inch that remained, and he looked apologetically at his benefactor.
“I'm Sam Walker, by the way.”
“Where you from?”
He wanted to say Harvard, just for old times' sake, but that would have
sounded crazy. “Boston.”
“New York.” As though it mattered now. Nothing mattered now, they were
all names of places that didn't exist. All that existed were Palermo, Sicily, and
Salerno, and Naples, and Rome, their ultimate goal, if they ever got there.
The tall blond man looked around him, squinting in the wind and rain. “I was
a lawyer before all this.”
Sam would have been impressed, but like the places they were from, the
people they had been no longer mattered. “I wanted to be an actor.” It was
something he had told hardly anyone, certainly not his parents before they died,
or his sister after that, and only a few friends, but even they had laughed at him.
And his teachers had told him that he needed to study something more
worthwhile. But none of them understood just what acting meant to him, what
happened when he stepped onstage. It was like magic reaching from his soul,
transforming him into the character he was playing. Gone the parents he had
hated, the sister he had loathed, and all his own fears and insecurities with them.
But no one seemed to understand that. Not even at Harvard. Harvard men
weren't actors, they were doctors and lawyers and businessmen, heads of
corporations and foundations, and ambassadors . . . He laughed softly to himself
again. He sure as hell was an ambassador now, with a gun in his hand, and his
bayonet fixed all the time so that he could run it through the guts of his enemies
as he had time and time again in the past year. He wondered how many men
Patterson had killed, and how he felt about it now, but it was a question you
didn't ask anyone, you just lived with your own thoughts and the memories of
the twisted faces and staring eyes as you pulled your bayonet out again and
wiped it on the ground. ... He looked up at Arthur Patterson with the eyes of an
old man and wondered briefly if either of them would be alive to see another
Christmas. “What made you want to be an actor?” “Hmm?” He was startled by
the serious look in the other man's eyes, as they both sank to a sitting position on
a rock planted in the mud near their feet as the water in the foxhole swirled
around them. “Oh, that . . . Christ, I don't know ... it seemed like an interesting
thing to do.” But it was more than that, much more than that, it was the only time
he felt whole, that he felt powerful and sure of himself. But he couldn't tell this
guy that. It was ridiculous to talk about dreams sitting in a foxhole on Christmas
Eve.
“I was in the glee club at Princeton.” It was an absurd exchange, and
suddenly Sam Walker gave a crack of laughter.
“Do you realize how crazy we are? Talking about glee clubs and drama clubs
and Princeton, sitting in this goddam foxhole? Do you realize we probably won't
even be alive by next week, and I'm telling you I wanted to be an actor. . . .” He
suddenly wanted to cry through his own laughter. It was all so goddam awful,
but it was real, it was so real they could taste it and feel it and smell it. He had
smelled nothing but death in a year, and he was sick of it. They all were, while
the generals planned their attack on Rome. Who gave a damn about Rome
anyway? Or Naples or Palermo? What were they fighting for? Freedom in
Boston and New York and San Francisco? They already were free, and at home
people were driving to work, and dancing at the USO and going to the movies.
What the hell did they know about all this? Nothing. Absolutely goddam
nothing. Sam looked up at the tall blond man and shook his head, his eyes full of
wisdom and sadness, the sudden laughter gone. He wanted to go home ... to
anyone . . . even his sister, who had not written to him once since he'd left
Boston. He'd written to her twice and then decided it wasn't worth the trouble.